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One year after Hooker Chemicals terminated use of Love Canal, the Board of Education of Niagara Falls, N.Y., purchased the site for $1. The Board intended to construct schools on the site, despite warnings from Hooker Chemicals of industrial waste located below the surface. Some of the land was also sold to build houses.

“Ponds and other surface water area became contaminated, basements began to ooze an oily residue, and noxious chemical odors permeated the area,” according to the University at Buffalo.

Air tests conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency revealed the toxic vapors present in basements at Love Canal to be a serious health threat. The uncommonly high rate of miscarriages and birth defects reported among those living in Love Canal seemed to have a plausible explanation.

New York Health Commissioner Robert Whalen called the site “an extremely serious threat and danger to the health and safety of those living near it” and advised pregnant women and young children to leave the area immediately, reported Time.

Two years later, on May 21, 1980, President Carter declared Love Canal a national emergency, setting in motion the relocation of another 710 families. It was America’s first non-natural federal emergency.

In December 1979, the Department of Justice filed for lawsuits seeking more than $117 million from Hooker Chemical Co. and its parent corporation, Occidental Petroleum Corporation, for clean-up costs. It was, according to an Environmental Protection Agency press release, “one of largest environmental complaints ever lodged by the Federal government against a major corporation.”

In 1995, the lawsuit was settled. Occidental Chemical Corporation agreed to pay $129 million to cover the $101 million cleanup and $28 million in interest. The money was paid to the EPA’s Superfund and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)